The State Against Blacks

My Fox Business show tonight is titled “The State Against Blacks.” That sounds counter-intuitive. After all, government has created all sorts of programs that are supposed to help minorities.

But as I write in my syndicated column this week, the opposite happens. Economist Walter Williams argues:

"The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery (and Jim Crow and racism) could not have done … break up the black family. Today, just slightly over 30 percent of black kids live in two-parent families. Historically, from the 1870s on ... 75-90 percent of black kids lived in two-parent families."

Why does the welfare state create illegitimacy?

"(Without welfare,) people would decide, 'I'm going to go out and get a job, I'm going to live more responsibly.'" And that would include getting married before having children, something the welfare system discourages.

The minimum wage is another example:

Williams says the minimum wage law has also been a tool of racism. In his book "South Africa's War Against Capitalism," he studied that country's labor markets during apartheid:

"White racist unions in South Africa that would never have a black as a member were the major supporters of minimum wage laws. Their stated purpose was to protect white workers from having to compete with low-skill, low-wage black workers.

Read the rest of the column for more examples of big government programs that end up hurting minorities.